Icarus | Z.M.

76 | Sorrow

Victoria Tomlinson

I didn't know emptiness was a feeling.

It was like an empty cave inside me. It wasn't just the absence of something, but it was like an unwelcome presence within itself. A vacuum that was swallowing everything inside of me. It had been a constant state of standing in a room where the walls stretched to infinity, where nothing else existed, no furniture, no signs of life. That was the only way to describe this feeling.

There was a force that settled in the pit of my stomach, the weight of gravity had intensified and was going to pull me down into a bottomless pit of nothingness. It was a void that could not be filled by anything that existed. Each breath I took felt like I was inhaling the absence of what once filled the air around me with life. There was this haunting feeling, an entire piece of me was missing. There was no way to process it, to accept what I'd seen only a couple of hours before. My best friend. The heavy ache that clung to every breath I took and every beat of my heart.

Harry.

Harry .

Harry, Harry...Harry.

He was more than just my friend. He was one of the few vibrant colours that added meaning and excitement into such a terrifying and dull life. We navigated growing up together, he was there beside me holding hands through so many years of my life. The waves of nausea crashed over me with a relentless force. I could hear the echo of his laughter, that beautiful sound of joy in the corners of my mind, but those sounds were constantly being overtaken by his cries, how he asked me if he was going to die, how he begged me to leave, how he cried for his mum.

He never got to go home and see his mum.

He just wanted to go home.

She didn't know.

I was going to have to tell her that her baby was gone.

My eyes squeezed closed again and I used the fabric from the pillow to catch the tear that was running down my cheek. The burn in the back of my throat told me that I was going to be sick again, but it didn't feel like there was anything left inside of me to get out.

I'd been brought home, back to the new house I was in. I didn't really know much of what had happened between last seeing Harry and now, my mind had shut down, repressing all of it from me.

All I knew was that I'd been there, and now I was here, in a house that didn't feel like home, and I was here alone. In a big empty room, the lights were off, the sheets pulled up to my shoulders, and a small lamp was on across the room. I didn't remember getting into bed, I didn't remember getting these bandages wrapped around my hands. I didn't remember getting his blood washed off me.

I couldn't move.

From the hallway, through the crack in the door, I could see two figures, talking lowly was if not not to wake me up.

Had I been asleep? For how long?

"Thank you for getting her back to me safely." It was Tate's voice that I heard first, talking in an almost whisper.

"Not a problem sir, as long as she's okay." Zayn's voice, the only voice I needed right now. His voice shook with emotion. He was the only one I couldn't have, he was just on the other side of the door and he couldn't come closer. I wanted to ask him what had happened.

"Do you have any idea how... her hands." Tate whispered again, he dodged around the question. "What happened?"

I tried to wiggle my fingers to see what had happened. I couldn't move them at all. I knew they were wrapped up in bandages and I remembered what had happened, I just didn't know how bad it actually was.